The Great Pension Withdrawal Scandal (Aviva)...

dunstonh

Sorry, what you've said is poppycock! If Aviva hasn't migrated its legacy data to a more modern environment, then that's their bad. Enterprises do this day in day out, to reduce cost, complexity and improve speed.

I'm afraid you are wrong both on Aviva and other businesses.

If you're suggesting that as a customer, I should be satisfied with the fact they have old systems and manual processes, then no I'm not.

I suspect you have not been in business.    Lets say they have 15,000 policies left on a hard coded system.    IT tell them it will cost £50million to move those 15,000 policies onto a new system purpose-built to handle them and bring in functionality that never existed when the policies were originally coded.  By the time it is coded, there will be 13,000 left on the system and by 2030, none left.

Would you really pay that money for that small number of policies?

no you wouldn't.  You would do what Aviva have done.  That is to move plans where possible but not move plans where it is not viable to do so but allow a transfer to their new modern plan at no cost. 

Albermarle

Sorry, what you've said is poppycock! If Aviva hasn't migrated its legacy data to a more modern environment, then that's their bad. Enterprises do this day in day out, to reduce cost, complexity and improve speed.

All the main pension providers have the same issues, not just Aviva. For example I have an older pension with Standard Life. It runs perfectly OK , the website is good , I can switch funds etc . However when I come to withdraw from the pension, the options are very limited and I will need to switch to a newer Standard Life Pension , or transfer to another provider. 

xylophone

Ok, so I have various pensions scattered about, the main ones with Scottish Widows and Aviva.

How about a  consolidation exercise?

Would SW accept transfer in?

Farside71

It's largely not the IT systems, which are indeed as inflexible as discussed in this thread.  When migrated to some of the "leading" outsourcer systems they are even worse than the original legacy systems.  The main benefits being able to turn off expensive mainframes and remove the expensive service contracts with IBM, Unisys etc. And all done with th outsourcer promising imaginary benefits in terms of straight through processing which never materialise.

A bigger issue is driving out the staff who knew how these old contracts worked via outsourcing or offshoring, and then the outsourcer deciding they don't need those "large" salaries and replacing them with younger and inexperienced staff.  A perfect storm really and one that won't ever get any better until the last legacy policy matures or is terminated

Thrugelmir

Farside71 said:

A bigger issue is driving out the staff who knew how these old contracts worked via outsourcing or offshoring, 

People progressively leave , retire  etc over time. That's the nature of any legacy business. Impossible for staff to be trained fully on every product that has ever been sold. 

Farside71

Thrugelmir said:

Farside71 said:

A bigger issue is driving out the staff who knew how these old contracts worked via outsourcing or offshoring, 

People progressively leave , retire  etc over time. That's the nature of any legacy business. Impossible for staff to be trained fully on every product that has ever been sold. 

Whilst that is true, in my experience,it's the accelerated rate of getting rid of experience that is caused by transformation programmes and outsourcing that has caused so much damage to service levels.  Mitigation is never properly put in place as to do so would expose the promises being made, as well as being quite expensive and no one wants to add that cost to  the flashy target operating model.  

marlot

When these legacy systems were developed, most people would be buying an annuity.  So each customer would be drawing on their funds just once.  A 30-day delay wasn't the end of the world.

If you want a drawdown account, the best advice is to move it to an account that has the functionality you desire.  There are plenty of good options.

I see no scandal here.  Just a system and process which is operating as it was designed a long time ago.

marlot

mattinlincoln said:

Sorry, what you've said is poppycock! If Aviva hasn't migrated its legacy data to a more modern environment, then that's their bad. Enterprises do this day in day out, to reduce cost, complexity and improve speed.

If you're suggesting that as a customer, I should be satisfied with the fact they have old systems and manual processes, then no I'm not.

Good god man, what next? Are you suggesting a taxi business that runs cars from the 1950's, should be successful? Maybe you'd be their only customer! 

I completely disagree.  Why would a business want to spend loads of money on a platform which is close to its end of life?  You can let customers who are content to live with its shortcomings hang around.  And any who want the more modern facilities can migrate to an offering which offers that.

NSG666

If Aviva have gotten you so worked up then I hope you have nothing with Mercer or your head is going to explode and you will die!

Albermarle

NSG666 said:

If Aviva have gotten you so worked up then I hope you have nothing with Mercer or your head is going to explode and you will die!

100% agree. If Mercer even respond to a query/e mail in 30 days , it seems like a miracle !